


Possession is Nine Tenths

by otherwiseestella



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Dean is the worst, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy, Home is where the beetles are., Interior Decorating, JB - Freeform, M/M, Polyamory, Schmoop, beetles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 17:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17430137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwiseestella/pseuds/otherwiseestella
Summary: Eggsy’s been living in the house almost a month before Merlin notices that none of his stuff is there (except his trainers).Merlin and Harry would like him to feel more comfortable. Cue revelations, beetles, and a search for ways to make things feel like home.A little plot bunny about Eggsy's possessions, and what it might mean to feel happy and safe in a space.





	Possession is Nine Tenths

Eggsy’s been living in the house almost a month before Merlin notices. He’s neat – frighteningly neat, as if the lessons he learned in the Marines are still fresh in him – and Merlin’s used to him putting things back where he finds them, folding his clothes into piles, rolling the ties up just like Harry taught him. He’s so neat he puts Harry to shame, and Merlin takes great joy in the way Harry’s ears turn pink when he informs him of that.

But even the neatness doesn’t account for this level of … nothing. A whole month – and granted, they’ve all been away for great chunks of it – but there’s no evidence at all that Eggsy lives with them, except a row of trainers, toed off neatly into the shoe rack behind the door. 

He’s not asked for a shelf of the bookcase, a bit of kitchen cupboard – and Merlin suspects, although he hasn’t had more than a cursory look – that the little box room they gave him as a study doesn’t just look empty, it actually is.

It's a lazy Sunday morning – even Merlin isn’t in until five, got Dani on day shift now, if he suspects it’ll be quiet – and he’s skimming the obits when he turns to Eggsy, voice deliberately light, and says ‘We could hire a van if you like, this afternoon? Go and fetch the rest of your stuff from your Mum’s?’

Eggsy stops chewing, the half-eaten piece of toast dipped in – is that yoghurt? – paused in mid-air halfway to his mouth. He gives Merlin a look too carefully blank to be genuine, and finishes chewing before he answers. The way he pulls the muscles by his eyes in, ever so gently when he’s anxious – well, it isn’t a tell because this isn’t a mission, but he’s going to remind Eggsy to watch for it in future.

‘Nah, ‘m’alright, ta Merlin. You wanna go mooch around Hyde Park instead, chuck bread at the geese?’

The way he throws it off, makes a counter offer is too slick, and so of course Harry’s head lifts out of the crossword, where he’s been patiently re-arranging the letters of ‘retribution’ for about five minutes. ‘We don’t mind you having your things here, Eggsy, if that’s what you’re worried about?’

‘I mean, whatever you’ve got, it can’t be worse than “over one thousand rare beetles in cases”’, Merlin says, rolling his eyes fondly at Harry across the table. ‘And anyway, be nice for you to put something of yourself into the house.’

‘I know where I’d rather put something of myself, thanks guv’, Eggsy says, but curiously there’s no heat to it, even if his face does go soft when he catches Harry biting his lip in response. 

Merlin hasn’t worked in espionage for over twenty years without knowing when to leave a heavy silence, so he busies himself with another bit of toast, keeping Eggsy in his periphery. Eggsy’s shoulders have fallen, and just for a second he lets a look of pain cross his face, before he squares up, coughs, lifts his tea. 

‘Anyway, its all gone...’ Two pairs of eyes slide to look at him. ‘… after I left, yeah, Dean chucked it all, or sold it.’

Merlin can see the dangerous set of Harry’s jaw. Can practically see the film reel of creative ways to end Dean’s life that is currently playing behind Harry’s eyes.  
They keep quiet, though; give him room to keep talking.

‘Mum tried to… I mean, course she did, yeah. Took my fucking gymnastics medals to the pawnshop, the cunt. Like anyone else would want those.’

Harry makes a noise, so low in his throat it is barely audible, and Merlin files away a groan for later, for when Harry inevitably asks, and he inevitably accedes to, combing the fucking internet for Gary Unwin’s under tens gymnastics medals.

‘Anyway’, he continues, dipping his cold toast in the yoghurt again, and Merlin’s going to have to speak to him about that, ‘got used to it, innit, so don’t go making that face at me, Harry. I’ve got you lot, got JB, that’s me sorted.’

‘Well’, Harry says, picking up his pen again, ‘at least my lovely beetles don’t have any immediate competition.’ And he smiles at Eggsy, letting his whole face go soft and dimple, with that look that indicates that Eggsy painted the whole sky, then hung the low winter sun as a special favour to Harry Hart.

They don’t mention it again. Go to the park, where Eggsy insists on showing off JB’s latest trick, which seems to be dive-bombing groups of geese with a blatant disregard for his own size or strength. They walk around, Merlin and Harry discretely hand in hand, Eggsy with an arm slung round Harry when the path is wide enough, fussing with JB when its not. 

Later that evening, Eggsy is in the box room - ‘your expenses claims are showing up in my nightmares, you cheeky shit, so sort it’ – when Harry knocks. ‘Oi oi’, Eggsy calls softly round the door. ‘It ain’t dinner yet, is it? I got loads more of these to…’ 

He trails off as Harry sidles round the door. He’s carrying something bulky, doing a poor job of concealing it behind his back. 

‘Not dinner, no. I was thinking about our conversation earlier, my dear’, he pauses as Eggsy flushes pink under the moniker, doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to his acute responsiveness to any endearment. ‘And I wondered if – until you’ve time or inclination to purchase things you’d like yourself – if you might enjoy these?’

From behind him, Harry pulls out the small frame, in tasteful muted gold. Inside it, in three lines, are twelve pinned beetles, mostly small and brown.

‘First ones I ever pinned’, Harry ploughs on, and if Eggsy didn’t know him, he wouldn’t catch the faint creep of colour across his face, the nervous catch of his voice. ‘In 1978, Cornwall, in summer. Perhaps not the most exciting, but I thought…’

‘Harry’, Eggsy says, and his voice is low. ‘Harry fucking Hart, you romantic, offerin’ me your beetles. Gonna make me cry, yeah?’ And he’s up from behind the desk in seconds, pulling Harry towards him, and into a kiss that’s all dirty heat, tongues and wanting. ‘Thanks, yeah?’ he whispers, as he pulls away to draw breath, his lips slick with spit and pinked from kissing. ‘Thanks, they’re magic.’

Three weeks later, a modest box arrives at the house by courier. In it are all the things Eggsy’s Mum has managed to squirrel away. A framed photo of him on his first birthday, sat on his Dad’s hip, which he can’t remember ever seeing before. His swimming certificate. A bunch of pens from airport gift shops that his Dad always used to bring home. They go in a mug on his desk, won’t let anyone touch them. He sends his mum a big, stupid bunch of flowers to her new address, and next time he goes round for lunch, she slips him an envelope. Old football posters, one of Eminem, and some photos of Ryan and Jamal, and a bunch of her and Daisy. He slips those into frames, later, and puts them up beside the beetles.

Yeah, its nice living with Merlin and Harry. He’s a lucky fucker. And its even nicer, now, the way that little corner feels like his. The way he sometimes leaves his jumpers on the sofa, and ends up buying enough paperbacks that Harry grudgingly gives him a shelf. He gets a warm fuzzy feeling he’d never admit to whenever he sees those bloody creepy Cornish beetles. Feels, yeah. Feels like home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please do leave comments, or kudos, if you enjoyed, as I sail my little ship through the Kingsman Universe. God, I love these three.


End file.
